Articles with Scrum

Being a Scrum Player

Teams approach the Scrum with the eyes looking at the benefits of SCRUM without paying enough attention to what it costs to get them. We will get all those benefits if we have the right people. And that each member knows what to do in a SCRUM team. Unfortunately, that is the key part. If we have a team knowing what to do, any method will work. The reality is that a very few people know what they have to do. Human being is different. In a team, everyone has different abilities and skills.

The SCRUM guides encourages the team effort. It does not say anything about how the development team should be organized and run. That is the implementation detail part and very dependent to organizations, cultures.

The work is delivered by the Scrum Team. And a unit of work is done by a person. The actual work is carried by a person. So eventually, it comes to how to build a strong team and get the work done. At this level, it is not bounded to SCRUM anymore. It is a universal thing—team. And it is not something new. It started long time ago when human started hunting for food.

Context matters (since we are not teaming up for hunting anymore). We need to build a team that plays well in Scrum.

Welcome to Scrum Player. What does it take to play well in a Scrum team?

The below applies for a Software Development team.

Communication

Communication skill is vital for every job. Communicate well, you will get what you want. The opposite will confuse you and the others. How can it help if no one understands what you are trying to say.

Who do you communicate with?

  1. Teammates: happen daily via chatting, discussions, meetings, arguments, …
  2. Clients: Anyone outside the development team—PO, SM, employees in the same company when you ask for help

How?
If there is a formula, then no one will surfer from the misunderstanding, miscommunication. I have not found that formula yet. However, there are some guidelines from others, from book.

Read this for a complete guidelines from Basecamp. I pick here and there and make up a list

  1. Write a complete dialog before pressing the Send button. Do not force other to read 3 or 4 messages to understand what you are trying to say. Look at the rules 3,4, and 6
  2. Do you homework first before asking for help. When raising a problem, make sure to include your analysis and proposed solutions (if there is). It is not good that you raise a problem without spending time and effort on investigating first
  3. When a problem is raised, if you are looking into it, let others know
  4. It is ok to say "I do not know", "I am busy atm so I cannot help"
  5. Do not expect responses immediately. And do not let others wait too long. In daily work, 30 minutes is a good period to wait. So if you ask a questions, it is fine that there is no response within 30 minutes. And if someone mentioned your name, it was not ok if you have not responded within 30 minutes
  6. For urgent issues, do not use chat. Find other channels: Direct talk, SMS, phone call, … whatever it works

Be accountable

Every member should care for the outcome of the team. But that does not mean that all members should care all issues in the team. Everyone is encouraged to join solving problems. But there will be only one person in charge of the problem.

What does it mean by in charge?

  • Means be able to answer the question: What is the status?
  • Means find a way to solve the problem either by him/herself or by asking others internal or external. He/she can ask for the team effort if that is the way to solve it
  • Means report the final status and say thanks to the team effort

Why is it important?

  • It shows that each member cares about the team outcome; that they raise their hands to solve problems so other can focus on other tasks. That is the teamwork in action
  • Well-organized, well-managed. We know what problems we are dealing with and that they are in good hands
  • Personal growth. It is a chance to improve problem solving skill.

Specialized

Let’s face this: Everyone has different ability and skill so the price. No matter what kind of team you are in, a level 10 developer cannot just do the work that can be done by level 5. And a level 5 developer is not supposed to do the work that requires level 10. It is just delusion. It will not work.

For a software development team to work, these roles are required

  1. Architect: Without architect, the software is just a piece of code added over the time. And soon enough, it will fall apart. It will be hard, even impossible, to add features. This role is hard to find
  2. Abstract thinker: I want to use the term designer but afraid that it will confuse with the existing designer role. This role has the ability to think of component, of design pattern, of trade off between choices
  3. Specialized implementer: Good at low level implementation. He/she has specialized skill in certain languages, framework. For example, a FE developer that specializes in Angular
  4. Labor: Developers with limited experience. For every project, there are easy, repetitive but time-consuming tasks.

Do you think that it is good idea to assign an architect a labor task? No, of course not.

A developer can play many roles at the same time. It is a matter of knowing the strengths and weaknesses and assign the right tasks to the right person.

I like this saying from a wise man

Don’t send your ducks to an eagle school.

It won’t work!

 

So let put it to work. Let’s play well – Scrum Player.

Team Practice – People

What we call a team is a group of people. What we call a work is a thing that will be done by people. In IT industry I am in, people build software, not a machine. When we look at a team, there are many roles. Some are developers; some are testers; some are called QA; some are architects and so on. And then we come up with many processes to make those roles worked well together. Sooner or later, we just prefer to team as Roles and Processes. People are eliminated. That’s sad!

I started to step into building a great team by looking at its components in my own eyes. I do not judge anyone or how they run their teams. This is purely my observations and practices.

I started to pay attention to how things work; where they come from. In that quest, I met Simon Sinek where I found inspirational speeches about leadership, about people, about what have been missing these days. Last year, I decided to study SCRUM seriously. There is a match between them: The People — The heart of everything.

Not many people say “I do not care about others“. It does not matter what we say. What we do matters. To get me engaged with the people, I constantly practice asking myself

  1. What have I done to help others?
  2. When was the last time I did?
  3. Do I really mean what I did?
  4. Do I foster the caring environment?
  5. …

Why do I have to ask myself those questions? Because I really mean it. I do not want to stop at saying that I care about others, in the team context.

Part of the practice is to get others involved. The end goal is not you become a good guy. The end goal is to have a good team where everyone cares each other, brings out the best, and deliver the best. What if every member practices asking those questions?

With the growing of collaborative tools, team members are preferring to chat on tools than talking to each other. The tools are perfect for remote team. But when everyone is sitting at the same office, each can reach others in a matter of tick, is it better if we can talk directly to each other? Yes. They have their own reasons. However, if they might talk a lot when discussing non-work topics.

I do not advocate for right or wrong regarding to the people in the team. There is no silver bullet of how to do it right. However, I do have some suggestions that I believe in, and that I am practicing.

First, a team leader should have the correct mindset when looking at people. He/she should reflect base on these questions

  1. Do I pay attention to helping my teammates?
  2. I might. Oh what was the last time then?
  3. Do I foster a good team spirit? That they help each other.
  4. What is my next step that I can start immediately?

In general there are 3 steps

  1. Recheck your intentions
  2. Reflect your actions in the light of your intentions
  3. Define immediate next doable actions

Second, Team Leader should share it with their team. You cannot do the right thing without honesty first. This is a hard step because of emotional barrier. It is not easy to speak out in the first time, honestly accepted our own faults. Regardless, you have to do it to reach the third step.

Third, foster the team spirit. The reason we are in a team is to help each other to accomplish certain things, usually defined as our job. We are there, team up, to build a software, to deliver a feature. What you have done individually does not much matter. What matter is the delivery of the whole team. A member might be very smart, work fast. He/she might finish his/her tasks quickly. But if he/she just stops there, the whole team still sucks.

To foster that spirit, one can practice

  1. Do I help other teammates?
  2. Oh when was that?
  3. Look after the guys next to you.
  4. Look at the team goals.

We cannot get everyone participated in that at the first time. There will be resistant. But, very important but, there will be some who are willing to change and see it as a good way to work.

 

We spend a major time of our live at work, with people we call coworkers, with people we call teammates. We team up to finish a job, to get things done. To accomplish those, and have fun at those major time spent, we have to start with us first. We are the one who makes a difference. All we need is to bring back our old behavior: Talk to each other and Help each other.

That how I believe it should work. I fight for it.

PSM1

PSM1 My First Certification Since University

At 5:30 AM December 13th, 2017 I decided to take the PSM1 exam. I passed with 95% corrected answers. Such a big moment! Thái Anh Đức at Scrum.org. And there is a story behind my decision.

The Story

I was introduced to Agile/Scrum back in 2009. And I hated it, especially the Daily Scrum (sometimes called Daily Standup Meeting) with the 3 questions being asked every day. I even called them the three stupid questions. I still hold that opinion to now. Since then I read from here and there about Scrum. There are some notion of Scrum-Like in the organizations I’ve worked with. I also attended some Agile events. I still have not felt better about Scrum. I thought Scrum is just a theory and it does not work. I hold that bias for years and that bias blocks me from learning.

Recently, I realized that I had not studied enough into the subject. I was not serious about it. There are good reasons for Scrum to be popular as it is today. Why don’t I figure it out? Why do I block myself from that? Once I made that decision, the next challenge was how. How do I hold that idea seriously? I know the normal trap that people have when they need to do something. Usually, we tend to make a big promise to ourselves. However, just a few days later we come up with excuses for not doing it. That was when I decided to take the exam.

Taking exam is a way to ensure that I am not joking with myself, that I am serious.

 

Before taking the exam, I heard people saying that those exams have no value. They are just a matter of remembering questions, practicing the answers, … and you get the certification. Really? “Is that simple?” I thought. By now, I confirm that it is not easy. Here is my journey.

The Journey

I started with downloading the official Scrum Guide. I printed it and carefully studied it 3 times. I did not just read over it. I studied it with my pencil at hand, took notes, picked out the important information. Do not fall in the trap of skimming it and think you understand it. Some might be able to do that. Many of us do not. Be realistic! After studying the Scrum Guide, I read some books suggested by the Scrum Org. At the same time, I checked out some courses on the Pluralsight. Once I felt a bit confident with my knowledge, I went to the next step.

Then I have to find a way to test my knowledge and get feedbacks. I found these links

http://mlapshin.com/index.php/psm-quiz/learning-mode/

https://www.thescrummaster.co.uk/professional-scrum-master-i-psm-i-practice-assessment

https://www.scrum.org/open-assessments/scrum-open

I took one and did the test. I failed miserably 🙁 That was the moment of truth. The test result put you exactly where you should be. Embrace it. I came back to the Scrum Guide and continued my study.

The nice thing about those tests are they give you answers with an explanation. Mostly they pick out the part in the Scrum Guide to backup the answer.

If you take the tests from all the above links, you will notice that they have different formats. Which means that you cannot remember the questions and answers. And the fact that there are too many to put into our short term brain memory.

After a few days of studying and practicing, I started to understand the Scrum. My testing scores were improving. And soon I completed 100% with half of the time. I kept studying and practicing for another week. I do not just want the certification. I want knowledge. And I was afraid of failing the test.

The Day

The day has come. I had to make a decision – Take the exam. PSM1 is about the basic knowledge of Scrum. I cannot keep learning the basic forever. The only way to verify my knowledge and get feedback is taking the exam. Either pass or fail, I will know where I am standing. Took a deep breath, I did 2 important steps

  1. Order the exam from Scrum.org.
  2. Create an item in my TODO list to take the exam tomorrow at 5:30 AM.

They are very important. Otherwise, I will find a good excuse to delay. As planned, with a bit of nervous, a bit of thrill, I checked the network connection to make sure I had a good stable one, I started doing my test. Once I click the button, there is no way back. The clock starts counting.

Even I did well in my open tests, the real test was a challenge.

  1. Most of the questions are not the same as you did in the open tests. Some might have the same idea with different expressions. That requires you to read and understand the questions and answers carefully.
  2. Time moves so fast. Make sure to keep a good balance between the time left and the questions. You should soon hit the speed of 1 question per minute. When I finished all 80 questions, there was 7 minutes left. I had very little time to
  3. Review all bookmarked questions. If you are unsure about a question, you can bookmark it.
  4. The test takes 60 minutes. Focus is also a challenge. That’s why I chose to start at 5:30 AM.

Mission Accomplished! I finally got it done!

Oh Congratulations! where am I standing in the Agile/Scrum buzzword? Basic, sirs! I know the basic of Scrum and have a good starting point for the next level.

That’s it!